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Ratafia of Oranges

A sweet orange liqueur made by infusing orange rinds and juice with brandy and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,706 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ratafia of Oranges

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the rinds and juice of the oranges with the brandy in a jar.

  2. Melt the sugar in the mixture and shake well.

  3. Let it infuse for one month.

  4. Filter the mixture and bottle it for use.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Brandy
Acts as the alcohol base that extracts and preserves the orange flavour.
Orange rinds
Supply aromatic oils that flavour the spirit during infusion.
Orange juice
Adds fruit acidity and sweetness-balancing brightness to the spirit.
Sugar
Sweetens the liqueur and softens the sharpness of the alcohol.

The step that matters

Shaking in the sugar. Sugar dissolves best when the mixture is shaken well, so it blends evenly rather than settling at the bottom of the jar and sweetening the liqueur unevenly.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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